Chron: Internet pirates are treading on `We the People'

I have downloaded everything there is to download. I own everything. It is mine.

File sharing is great! I have obtained so much music that is out of print and tons that I didn't even know existed. I have also listened music that I have not heard since I was a kid. I have learned about so many different artists/bands and have spread the word about the ones I have liked and bought thier records. The world has just exploded with music in the last few years thanks to file sharing. It is a great thing.

 

andymoon

Why was it so necessary for you to get those 2 Weird Al songs before you had money to buy the CD?

Also, they weren't trying to get rid of Tivo. They forced Sonicblue to change a feature that would automatically skip commercials with no user intervention on their ReplayTV boxes (Tivo and ReplayTV are GREAT products).

I am a music customer and a DVD customer. I have absolutely no fear of being sued because I don't break the law by downloading music/movies illegally.

By the way, you will enjoy Netflix. I don't know where you live, but if I mail a movie from my home, 90% of the time, I get an email before 9:00 AM the next morning indicating they already received it. It is usueally a 3 day turnaround to send/receive movies, e.g. I'll mail on Monday and have a new movie on Wednesday.

Again, regardless of how you try and twist it and justify it, the fact is you are breaking the law. You are upset with the Republicans for breaking a rule in the Texas legislature, you, too are breaking the rules/laws.

 

There is a study (if you want to see it, I will have to dig it up) that shows that people who download music purchase at nearly 10 times the rate of people who don't download music. The people who download music ARE the consumers, they are the ones who buy the bulk of the music, and they are the ones the RIAA will alienate if they continue along the path they have chosen.


And there are far more convincing studies that show the exact opposite as well...

But what if (the if that the RIAA doesn't want to consider) the 10,000 who download it decide that they like it and purchase their own copies?

Then that's a choice that the copyright owner can exercise. It doesn't matter if music piracy generates $100 billion for the RIAA - they own the copyrights and if they don't want their music being illegally copied, they have a right to push that.

Common sense tells you that since the RIAA is greedy, if file-swapping really was generating more revenues, they wouldn't be fighting it so hard. The fact that they are spending ridiculous sums of money to fight it tells you what kind of effect its really having.

I believe that there is a happy medium. I think that there is such a thing as responsible downloading (like rimrocker).

Yeah, download things that you have the legal right to, and don't download things you don't have the legal right to. Simple and straightforward.

 

I don't know if that's really an accurate characterization. I see them fighting this more so because the technology out there can one day eliminate the need for the RIAA. They're fighting to maintain control of music. With the ever growing range of entertainment options available it's only natural for music sales along with tv ratings etc. to decline over time and I see this as even more of a factor with the RIAA because of the bitterness they've created with the way they've run the music business. They've been slow to embrace new technologies, have engaged in price gouging, and continue to stiffle creativity with this preference for the slick packaging of the Brittney Spears and Backstreet Boys nonsense.

 

couldn't have said it better myself. f*ck the RIAA and everything they stand for. i'll be damned if i'm gonna spend $18 on a damn CD w/ only 2 songs worth listening to. they're looking out for only one thing, and that's themselves. they could care less about the consumer. so i could care less about them. they can sue as many people as they want, but they're fighting a losing battle. and that's good........ screw 'em, that's what i say.

and screw anyone sticking up for them too. the RIAA business model is severely dated, yet they refuse to change a ******* thing. why??? because they're only worried about their money, and not their consumers. don't give me your ethical or moral crap, i could care less. if they want to screw me out of my hard earned cash, i'll screw them out of their not-so-hard-earned cash. because it ain't the damn RIAA i support, it's the artists i choose to support (and the ones i do support get my money because i beleive they deserve it).

so there.

 

Who shut my thread down in the hangout? I didn't post that to become a "debate" thread. Mainly it was to ask the question "who is going to keep downloading now?".

 

But it IS the law. We live in a society of laws. If you DON'T like a law, our society offers the opportunity to work to get it changed rather than BREAK it. You offering free music is a great way to get started in the business, but that doesn't make illegal downloading legal.

If you can't see the difference between breaking the law and not breaking the law, this discussion just won't be productive.

You asked me what I think and you have responded to my thoughts:

"I admit that I HAVE downloaded copyrighted materials a few times and would like to throw out the circumstances to see what y'all think of my downloading."

A few final questions:

1. Do you acknowledge that it is currently illegal (regardless of personal opinion) to download copyrighted material without the express permission of the copyright holder?

2. Do you download copyrighted material prior to owing a physical copy?

3. Do you break the law by doing so?

 

I have explained my point about downloading more than a dozen times from a musician and songwriter perspective so I'm not going to go over it again.

Major is covering most issues pretty well as usual. I'm just surprised at the logic people use to justify getting music for free.

Music is not a necessity. It is a luxury. If you can't afford it or think CD's are too expensive or think the RIAA's business model is flawed, don't buy music. But, it isn't yours to take just because you don't like paying.

I don't like paying for LOTS of things. I dread my energy bill each month. I'm not a fan of paying off my credit card debt. I would love it if my house note disappeared. But, I pay them because I realize that it is my responsibility to do so and, in the case of my house, if I want to keep it.

I don't defend the RIAA. I hate 'em like most musicians do. But, my like or dislike for them is irrelevant.

As for the article, well, I rolled my eyes a lot while reading it. I can see both sides of the issue and understand the business is dramatically changing. I get what he is saying, I just felt like any second he was going to break into "America the Beautiful" and that seemed pretty over the top.

 

the constitution is for the weak.
like religion, norms, and all those other things holding us back.

if the constitution is so holy, Mr. Burt above might look at the PACs, big businesses, and sleazy politicians/institutions twisting, if not trampling, the good intentions of its creators and screwing the average american every day.

when i see the rich and famous rape, kill, cheat, and steal, and get away with it every day in america, i am not surprised. those who can, ignore the law. those who can't, obey it. it is as simple as that.

the riaa can kiss my a$$. find me if they can. sue me if they can. until they do, i'll do exactly as i please. the constitution is just a bunch of good intentions, which mean nothing without enforcement.

 

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution states...

Explain to me how, in the current system, where pharmacutical patent rights last for 20 years, RIAA copyrights (which were initially set at 7 years by the first congress) which are now at the life of the author, plus fifty years, plus seventy years ( the final seventy of which were pushed through congress by the RIAA when the "50 years" on many valuable recorded works were about to expire) can be considered "limited times"?

The RIAA is violating the constitution, not the end users. And if you believe that you are somehow violating the consitution (as they would have you believe) for downloading 75 year old Al Jolson or Inkspots mp3's then you are there pawn. Until they return to a more constitutional copyright perod I feel no compunction for "pushing back" on their copyright infringements.

!&#* the RIAA.

 

Even though I'm a total hypocrite because I download songs from Kazaa myself, I do know from my college studies the wrongness inherent in it. Well.....why do I do it?

1. I'm really tired of paying 18 bucks for CDs, especially when only a few of the songs on them are worth a damn and the rest is filler. Some artists (Sade, Outkast, Mystikal) release albums every few years that are 100% great stuff and I don't mind plunking 18 dollars down for a great CD.

2. Sometimes, in the case of cheesy eighties tunes, I only want one song. I don't want to buy the Flock of Seagulls greatest hits because I only like one of their songs. What the RIAA don't realize that I wouldn't have bought those CDs with that one or two cheesy eighties songs on them anyway.

I really don't like the heavy-handed Gestapo tactics of the RIAA as they try to sue the entire world for downloading a few songs. Before this became a hot-button issue, their sales were going in the toilet anyhow because they were putting out such crap and jacking up prices to unheard of levels.

 

The US Copyright Act of 1972 changed the law. Look, music is not some nebulous thing that just floats around in the air waiting for discovery. The work involved is real and not different from the work put into creating and building any tanglible piece of material.

It is definitely a gray area when it comes to artists long gone, but my guess is the percentage of downloads for Al Jolson and the Inkspots has got to be pretty damn low. And we all know that this argument isn't about that anyway. It's about pop artists around today making a living (or trying to) off of their own creation.

That's the American way unless you would prefer something other than capitalism.

 

This is the EXACT reason why I love Apple's Music Store. $1 per song and you don't have to get the whole damn record. That is something I do now with tremendous regularity.

The Win version is out this fall.

 

You can't write a law that changes the constitution. The constitutional clause I quoted violates the constitution. The constitution clearly intends to balance the benefits to creativity and development of public domain ownersip with justly deserved rewards for the for the act of genuine creativity. The media distribution companies have succeded in getting rich by doing nothing in the last 100 years because they were necessary for distribution. It was therefore necessary to right off their part as "overhead" even when they were doing more than taking overhead. Now it is possible to eliminate these leaches, and these media companies need to secure their position by altering the concept of intelectual property as it has existed throughout history so that they can latch on their parasitic little fangs and make themselves "essential".

The way thi eternaly extended copyright system works, every time a copyright comes up, it is just extended, and therefore still remains "not perminent". I hope I don't have to explain to you how laughalble it is to accept this as true. In this system Big@ss Romeco could have aqured the rights of Aristotle by agreeing to pay for his hemlock and Plato would have been prevented from writing The Republic, The Statesman and basically all of the other posthemous Aristotle works. Some estate executor would have sold Shakespear's rights, and we'd all be paying royalty fees to ITN every time somebody said "something's rotten in Denmark." Some monk would have copyrighted the diatonic scale, and we'd all drop a dime on them everytime we hummed a tune. The MPAA and the RIAA etc, are trying to create a world in which ideas are treated with the same legal basis as objects and are comodities which can be milked for profits in perpituity. Period. End of Story.

The artists you feel sympathy for, Jeff, are not the ones getting over here. You're falling for the same type of emotional red-herring that is behind every misleading lame ass Wayne Dolcefino exposee on channel 13. They've tricked you into believing in their cause by tugging your heartstrings with a similar, but unrelated issue. File-sharing is a reaction to a system of intelectual property corpratization that is more restrictive than any at any point in history. Fix the system, and the symptoms will disapear. Give recording artists the same 20 year protection that drug companies get, and I will delete every mp3 from my HD that is less than 20 years old.

The 20th century media companies need to die off now that they aren't necessary anymore, but they are fighting to stay alive. Eliminate them, and have the artists deal directly with the apple store.

 

I'm not suckered into anything. I've been a musician for 20 years. I have many friends in the business, some very successful. I know more about how the business operates than I ever wanted to. You're not talking to some moron who read about poor widdle Metawica and felt sorry for them.

I would love to see the RIAA replaced by a more efficient model better for the artists. I'm not suggesting anything different.

What I am saying is that it is completely illogical to use "the RIAA sucks" or "I can't afford CD's" as an argument for downloading copywritten material for free. If you want to say, "Yes, I know it is illegal and I do it anyway. I'll take my chances." Fine. Good for you.

But the "they are horrible and I don't want them to make any money" argument is as weak as millionaires like Metallica explaining how downloading is killing their sales.

 

I don't mean to piss you off. I apologise. My girlfriend at least attempts to make a living as a musician. I sympathise with the musicians, as well, because she is always broke and taking my cash.

That having been said, in your last post, you equate legality and morality. I would hope that you understand that the two are different. One has to do no farther than your vegitarianism to find an example of this.

So, I feel no compunction about downloading and sharing MP3's from large corporations, because I see what I believe to be a corrupt and immoral system. When I refer to people being duped, I don't so much mean to refer to you specifically, as I mean to refer to the average person who buys the RIAA line hook-and-sinker. There are plenty of people who buy the RIAA line that there is absolutely no difference between breaking into someone's house and stealing a one-of-a-kind Renoir painting.

Let me give you an example using the parallell of the movie industry:

Starting about the 1930's movies became big business, and very expensive. As such, movie houses made it a point to sign people to exclusive contracts. Even the most talented actors were somtimes forced to work under opressive contracts. These movie companies protected the distrabution of their product at all cost. In 1974, acting on a tip, the FBI raided the home of Roddy McDowall in a copyright infringement probe, McDowall was forced to rat out friends, like Rock Hudson and Mel Torme, as well as his suppliers in order to avoid getting charged. The collection of 1160 cassettes and film reels was valued at $5 million.

In the late 70's however, the VCR was made legal, despite claims by the MMPA that it would kill their business and take money out of the pockets of movie stars. Instead, what has happened is that there is an incredible diversity of filmmaking/TV production occuring at low cost for people starting out and the increased number of potential production companies has given big stars unprecidented barganing power and their salaries have skyrocketed. The only people who have suffered have been the large film houses, as well as the movie houses who before were operating under a falsely enforced monopoly.

In the modern environment, I look back on Roddy McDowall and I don't see somebody that I would consider a "immoral pirate". I see someone who loved movies, and was compelled to violate the law in order to satisfy his love.

I view Napster people the same way. Set up a system that is equitable for both the consumers and the artists, and I will buy in. Until then, I have no problem downloading from Napster.

When it comes to people who are independent like Anni DiFranco, I do buy the albums that I want, and avoid any downloading.

 

wow! both jeff and ottomaton have really thought this through.

a big thumbs up to both of ya! i find ottomaton's argument more to my liking though.

the law in this case merely applies a veneer of morality to a system that is through and through purely plutocratic self-interest.